Why Education is Vital to Ending white Supremacy; Why it’s Being Attacked.
Before you started learning about white supremacy and your role in either upholding or dismantling it, you never gave it a thought, did you? You never actively tried to change your behavior or work to make this country equitable for everybody, did you? Now that you’re learning, even if you’re not actively doing that yet, you’re thinking about it. The idea is there. You are becoming more open to it, and to other ideas for dismantling white supremacy in this country. That’s what education does.
The US is founded on violence against Black and Indigenous people. Pretending that isn’t the case doesn’t change it. It doesn’t stop racism. The idea that white children must never be made to feel bad about the past, is absurd. Most children, if I am an example, will feel bad and turn that into outrage, or be inspired to fix the problems our ancestors created. But maybe that’s the actual fear? The excuse of children feeling bad is a red herring for the fact that white adults are afraid of future generations dismantling the white supremacy that makes them feel safe and powerful over others.
If enough white people get educated and outraged, we might act collectively to dismantle white supremacy. We have the power, all we have to do is use it. And that scares a lot of white people.
Sometimes white supremacy seems like an entity outside of us. Like a being that ultimately controls the country and everybody in it. It has nothing to do with us, personally. That’s actually a failsafe, built into it, as a protection. Keeping white people both scared, and insisting on their individuality so they never realize they’re a collective, with collective power, is its greatest protection. This is an “us” problem to get over.
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